Nvidia has officially launched the RTX 5050 entry-level graphics card today, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing that. Nvidia has been extremely cagey about this card's launch and it hasn't sent out any review samples to typical publications. However, while we await stock to show up on store shelves, we can at least take a look at board partner performance numbers , which pen the 5050 as slightly worse than an RTX 4060.
Fleshing out the RTX 50 series and competing directly with the few last-generation GPUs still kicking around, the RTX 5050 is Nvidia's most affordable of its new-generation cards. MSRP starts at $249, and if the relatively stable pricing of the RTX 5060 is anything to go by, this card should remain available at around that price—with a few board partner cards nudging up to $300 ish with factory overclocks.
How popular this card proves to be will likely be dependent on early reviews, but those are impossible to find at the time of writing, as Nvidia doesn't seem to have sent any out for testing. It did release a chart suggesting the 5050 could perform up to 50x faster than a GTX 1050, which has largely been laughed out of court by most interested parties.
Credit: Inno3D
Inno3D, however, has released a few charts showcasing the RTX 5050's real performance in a number of 3DMark benchmarks, via VideoCardz . Across the board the 5050 was able to beat the RTX 3060 by 10-20%, and in a few instances it pipped slightly ahead of the RTX 4060, though that last-gen card also held a lead in a few instances, too. The 4060 was much stronger in real games, too, beating the 5050 by as much as 10%.
It shows the generational improvements with the Blackwell architecture and gives ballpark 4060 numbers for anyone considering buying a new 5050. It'll come with support for DLSS4 and multi frame generation, too, which could make this a very affordable upgrade for those on entry-level 2000 or 3000-series cards.
That said, it is still limited to just 8GB of VRAM, which is becoming increasingly problematic for even entry-level gaming in 2025, and at this sort of price point, there is some stiff competition. There's Intel's B570 with 10GB of VRAM that offers similar performance, and indeed the 12GB RTX 3060. While the 5050 might be ahead in games and benchmarks that don't need extra memory, in games that do, that older card will easily win out.
Either way, though, it'd be best to wait for reviews of the RTX 5050 before making any kind of purchasing decision. They'll probably land in the coming days as reviewers buy cards for testing purposes.
